Longing

The dark time of the year has wrapped itself around us like a raincloud from a movie that follows us everywhere. Slowly, but assuredly the sun rises every day a little later and says ‘good night’ a little earlier… Sneaky enough to leave us in uncertainty when we will see the sun again. At the moment the sun rises around 9 a.m. and sets by 2:30 p.m.

Many times when I awake these days, I find myself surrounded by grey haze. The haze lies heavily on the hills surrounding us, hugges treetops and floats over the lake surface. The haze acts like a drug. It blurs your feeling of time. A day could look exactly the same as long as there is light: grey. But it also brings peace and silence when walking through town. Passing by colorful swedish houses with their white ornaments, you can look into the windows and watch families getting ready for their day. Families with set breakfast tables, chasing around kids or doing the dishes. People up here don´t care too much about shutting their lives off from the public. They do not have window shutters, and if they do they never use them. People have started to put christmas decoration up and there is christmas-lights in nearly every window. You can see their golden shimmer glowing through the haze and in the front yards. 

The snow has started to come and when there is snow life gets even more slowed down. When walking on snow you can barely hear your own steps. Cars and busses are forced to drive slowly and all in all you just have this calm feeling inside of you. The Swedes, though are waiting for more snow to come. The biathlon ski world cup has started a couple of days ago and looking at professionals playing in the snow evokes a strong desire in Swedes… They get restless. I imagine them getting ready in their own sporty way. Checking in the basement if they have all needed equipment, maintaining what is there and going to the sports-store a couple of times. Most likely they enjoy it so much, that they will go there to inform, then to try, maybe to try again and then finally to buy whatever they need. I find it positively amusing how outdoory Swedes are and I gotta say it rubbs off. When surrounded by enthusiasm it is hard to stay … well – ME.
And this is how I cought my self saying: “Look how beautiful the snowflakes are, I wish we´ll get more snow soon”

– Yep, I am in danger of getting crazy!

Place called home

I love Östersund. Moving here was a unplanned decision and surprising to myself. I am not a winter-affine person and I do absolutely LOVE the beach and ocean. But somehow I ended up in northern Sweden, close to the famous ski area of Åre.

This land hasn´t been populated for a very long time due to the inland ice, that melted slowly away and uncovered this huge part of land known as the three countries Norway, Sweden and Finland.

You would be surprised when you look up Östersund on a globe. It is so far up, it looks like I am living on the northpole. When I first realized how far up I am living I considered it to be likely for me to get a part time job at Santa Clauses´ christmas factory with the other gnomes there.

“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” – Marilyn Monroe

Some of you might wonder why I chose to move here. First of all I thought it could be awesome to love in Sweden… eehm, live in Sweden. But another reason is that things just seemed to fall into place, when I started researching this place. I believe when you are moving into the right direction the universe is going to help you fulfill your dreams. I found the perfect Master-program, matching to my previous education. I met all the entry requirements and managed all tests and paper-work. Finally I found the perfect apartment here and my decision was made.

I decided to sell most of my things in Germany and spent the summer selling and organizing things and enjoying quality time with my family and friends.

And just look where I am now!!

A new beginning

Not only is this a new beginning in writing blog-posts, but also it is a new chapter in my life. I am very thankful to the person who encouraged me today to continue my writing. It makes me happy to know that there are still people out there who are following my blog even though the last post was 9 months ago. I´ll promise you won´t have to wait that long for the next one! Like I sayed myself: “The trip around the world is over, but the journey of life has just begun” 😉

This was just that kind of kick in the ass I needed to go back to writing. This time I am not writing about an exciting trip around the world, but about my everyday life.

One thing that has changed within the last 2 years, during my trip, but especially after, was inspired by Steve Job´s “Every day I look in the mirror” quote.

“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something…almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

And for the past 2 years, when I looked in the mirror and asked myself if I would be doing what I am about to do, my answer was: hell, yeah! – And that´s how I moved to Sweden.